FIVE WAYS TO STEAL TIGER’S POWER

Luther Black­lock ex­plains what you can learn from the key changes Woods has made to his swing.

Tiger Woods is re­turn­ing to Au­gusta Na­tional for the first time since 2015. Here are some of the key move­ments built into his new swing that can help you be­come a more pow­er­ful player.

To un­der­stand Tiger’s come­back, you have to un­der­stand the his­tory. Dur­ing the decade he worked with Butch Har­mon, Tiger had sev­eral swing flflaws flaws – a shut face in the take­away, a bowed left wrist at the top and a rerout­ing of the club in the down­swing that caused his left leg to jump out the way through im­pact. The volatile tran­si­tion dam­aged Woods’ body. Be­tween 2004 and 2010, Hank Haney made whole­sale changes to Tiger’s swing that were just dis­as­trous. He taught Tiger to take the club back on the shaft plane then roll and bow the left wrist into the top of the back­swing. This move cre­ated an ar­ray of volatile shots and, in turn, a melt­down in con­fi­dence.

While Sean Fo­ley couldn’t undo the dam­age, Woods found a coach, in Chris Como, who was able to get him to swing in an ortho­dox way. Como rec­ti­fied the biome­chan­i­cal flaws in Tiger’s swing. No longer are we see­ing a back­swing with a bowed left wrist and the up­per left arm lift­ing and sep­a­rat­ing from the chest. Tiger’s swing is now more ortho­dox and in per­fect plane – that’s why he’ll re­main healthy and com­pet­i­tive. For more in­for­ma­tion, con­tact: Lutherblack­lock@gmail.com